UCONN MEN'S BASKETBALL: Much has changed for Huskies in a year's time

Connecticut's Shabazz Napier holds a piece of the net after his team won the men's NCAA Final Four college basketball championship game against Butler 53-41 Monday, April 4, 2011, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

A year earlier, on the first Monday of April, Napier and the UConn men's basketball program were on top of the world. Led by Kemba Walker and aided greatly by the likes of Napier, Jeremy Lamb, Alex Oriakhi and others, the Huskies were putting the finishing touches on a miracle postseason run by beating Butler in the national championship game at Houston's Reliant Stadium.

Now, the Huskies are a program in turmoil. Jim Calhoun may or may not return for a 27th year at the helm. Lamb and Andre Drummond could be bolting to the NBA. Oriakhi is in the process of transferring to another school. Others could follow, because as it stands right now, the Huskies -- pending appeal, or a change in NCAA philosophy -- can't play in next year's NCAA tournament (or Big East tournament) due to low Academic Progress Rate (APR) scores in recent years.

In the span of 12 months, the Huskies have gone from Houston to "we have a problem."

Napier isn't the best person to get a gauge on the state of the program. He doesn't watch much TV (hasn't watched a lick of the NCAA tournament), doesn't patrol the Internet and says he's usually the last person to find out when teammates like Oriakhi decide to transfer.

But, as always, Napier has opinions. Particularly when asked about the potential penalties UConn faces for falling short of APR standards imposed by the NCAA last fall. Currently, APR scores from 2009-10 and 2010-11 are being used to determine whether teams are NCAA tourney-eligible, and by those standards, UConn is one of the few teams in the country to fall short of the necessary rolling average of 930.

If the Committee on Academic Performance decides to use scores from 2010-11 and 2011-12, however, UConn would qualify. Napier thinks that's the fairest measure, since only one player from this past season's roster (Oriakhi) was even with the program in '09-10, when UConn's APR was a grisly 826.

"As a sophomore, going into my junior year, the people they're blaming it on is the class of juniors and seniors," Napier said. "The way it's been explained to me is that, even though we're doing the right thing, my class has a great GPA, it makes it seem like we're doing something wrong. For us to be blamed for something like that, we feel it's not cool at all."

Napier, a sociology major, said he, Ryan Boatright and others have strong GPAs right now, a product of the program's improved academic infrastructure.

"What happened in the past happened, but the staff learned from their mistakes, they have us in study hours and doing a lot of things that they wished they did back then," he said. "It seems like, we don't know what to do now, as sophomores and juniors, because we feel like we did the right thing and they're saying we did the wrong thing."

There's also the very valid point that UConn is being penalized twice for its APR failings: the program was already docked scholarships last spring.

"On that behalf, I can understand (taking away scholarships) because as a staff, you have to take responsibility for that," Napier said. "But for a team that only has one junior, one person that was in that class -- and he was doing well as a freshman -- I don't think you should dock everybody. College basketball is to help kids out like myself, who had it tough growing up, dealt with a lot of stuff. To come up here and play, through the hard times and good times, and then not being able to play in the tournament that everybody wants to play growing up, it's going to be tough. Hopefully, we get that appeal, and they understand we're doing as best as we can."

If not, missing out on the NCAA tournament is "going to devastate a lot of people," Napier said. For his part, he intends sticking things out in Storrs.

"My heart is here," he said. "I'm always going to be loyal. (But) no one knows about the future."

And if UConn is barred from both the Big East and NCAA tournaments next year (not to mention the NIT, CBI, etc.), the players may have a lot of self-motivating to do.

"Like Coach said, 'Whoever's here, you've got to be willing to work, because if this season didn't motivate you, there's something wrong,'" Napier said. "If anything, you can just play for the ability to win. You don't want to lose, you play to win. You don't want to step on the court and lose that opportunity of getting the win."